Awakening Archives — The Leaf Heart Path

June 18, 2026June 18, 2026

Trust Your Gut: Intuitive Record Keeping for Doubtful Days

Black and white photo of a woman lying on a picnic blanket with a scraped forehead and nose making a sad face

We’ve all had days where we feel less intuitive. The hits aren’t coming, the flow is slow, or we’re a bit disconnected. This can foster doubt: am I really intuitive? Is any of this real? Did I imagine that feeling? A simple way to combat the psychic doldrums is through intuitive record keeping. Intuitive record keeping is a helpful practice I’ve turned to again and again, no matter how far along I am on my intuitive journey.

Write it down

Many years in the past, the common refrain floating through our summer cottage was “write it down!” This practical advice from Grandma and her identical twin came in response to tales of the weird, wondrous, or woo woo. Pouring over the camp log there are stories of bats, strange flashing lights, and swamp gas casting an eerie green glow over the forest of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula; brief blurbs hinting at the fantastic interwoven in the fabric of daylight activities like blueberrying, birdwatching, and who caught last night’s fish dinner.

The twinnies knew that time washes out details, no matter how interesting or astonishing the experience.

Black and white photo of three women standing outside in a forest on boulders — Great Aunt Betsy and Grandma enjoying the great outdoors with their aunt, Helen. They shared a special bond that only twins have.

The truth is out there

Case in point; in the mid to late 90’s, my sibling and I witnessed multiple night UAP activity over Lake Superior. We ignored Grandma and Great Aunt Betsy’s advice, and as a result we’re left with a mere shape of the experience. What could have been crystal clear if we’d written it in the camp log, instead is etched in eroding memory. Alas, there are no dates or times, no specific recall of who was with us, the trajectory and interactions with the UAP light, and how long each experience lasted; it’s all melted away.

Lesson learned.

I had my intuitive awakening when I was in my thirties, and had serious misgivings about next steps. With research, therapy, and mentors my eyes opened. I also began documenting encounters, no matter how slight some seemed. This record keeping has been incredibly helpful in my growth, especially in those early days of doubt. What went from a series of sporadically intense events grew into a more firm pattern of extrasensory experiences. I could no longer deny that something was out there.

So what does keeping an Intuitive Record do for you?

It begins to build up your confidence. As your entries grow, you are reminded that YES, you are intuitive. YES, you have unique intuitive abilities. And YES, you will always be intuitive. This is really important for the times where things feel shut off, and for those periods where you need to be more embodied in your day-to-day experiences. We are spirits having a human moment, and sometimes we need to be grounded. A record is something you can come back to when you are ready to open the channel again.

Energy flows where intention goes. As you continue to build, you are signaling to the Universe, the Divine, your Spirit Team, to whomever or to whatever is out there, that you would like more of THIS. You prime your aura and energy to attract more extrasensory experiences. Use your notebook regularly. And as your record grows, this magnetism increases. It becomes its own manifestation tool, one that is easily accessible and always ready to use.

Here’s how to begin your intuitive record:

Get yourself a notebook, your art supplies, or favorite app of some kind.
Begin listing out/drawing out/talking out your accurate intuitive hits and experiences from over the years.
Add to the record as new ones occur.
Review your entries often.

It’s that simple.

Writing down the bones

I like to categorize my record into verifiable experiences, and other memorable experiences. If it’s verifiable, someone else is part of the experience. They can back it up or say, “that’s my granddad you are talking to!” Within the other memorable experiences category, I may not be able to validate what I saw through another, but there is no doubt that something happened.

For example, the UAP experience falls under verifiable experiences because multiple witnesses were present. My sibling and I talk about it to this day. The time two of my friends and I saw a woman walk through a wall is a verifiable experience. All three of us saw her at the same time. Years later, an outside party shared that we had seen a well-known energetic impression of “the bun lady,” known for the low bun she wears in her brown hair.

An example of a memorable experience is when I went to the local hospital for an exam. It was dimly lit, quiet, and comfortable, and the tech was working close to me. As I relaxed I only saw the dark behind my eyelids, until a woman punched through the center of my vision and ripped a hole in the black backdrop. The action was cartoonish as she popped her head through the emerald green colored crack (it was very much like a comic book, or breaking the fourth wall). She had short dark curly hair, and even though she only showed me her head, shoulders and arms, I knew she was petite in life. She was wearing a small gold cross and I knew she was the tech’s mother.

While this was a fairly strong psychic experience, it is categorized as unverified in my records because I wasn’t about to broach the situation with someone I didn’t know. I didn’t know the tech, I didn’t know her story, I didn’t know when her mother passed, or what their relationship was like. (Although I did get the impression they were very close.) While unverified, it was an extremely vivid and intimate experience, and one I had forgotten about until I was writing in my intuitive record when it all came bubbling back up to the surface.

Just begin

These are some examples of bigger experiences, but subtle and small is often how Spirit works-particularly if you are just beginning your intuitive journey. Maybe you saw a lot of feathers after you asked for a sign of feathers from your Spirit Team. Write it down! Maybe you smelled your Grandma’s perfume when you were reminiscing about her. Write that down too.

Add to your journal when you experience anything extrasensory to build up your intuitive tracking and manifesting muscles, and when you recall something from the past. Don’t worry about dates or really specific details if you are back tracking. Include as much or as little detail as you’d like within each entry.

In time, your intuitive record will remind, surprise, and delight you when you read over its contents. It will remind you of your wondrous woo experiences, wash away your doubts, and help you to attract more extrasensory encounters. And it will always be waiting for you, even if you need to take a break.

Eventually Great Aunt Betsy passed, and a year later her sister followed. In their afterlife they are always together, sharing messages and advice. They were the ones who encouraged me to step away from public school teaching and into healing, a cherished visitation I noted in my intuitive record.

Do you have a memorable intuitive experience? Because now is looking like a great time to start that journal. In the wise words of the twinnies, “write it down!” and follow the thread, because there are likely encounters you may have forgotten, and many more to come!

February 21, 2023May 22, 2025

Honing Your Psychic Sensitivity

Are you new to intuitive development? How can you supercharge your psychic sensitivity? You aren’t limited in options! The sheer volume of information on strengthening clairs, meditation for opening chakras, and processes to cleanse your aura is staggering. Perhaps, you’ve partner-practiced boosting your ESP, taken workshops on mediumship, or cleaned up your diet to clear your channeling abilities. While some practices become part of your daily routine, others likely go right into the bin.

December 21, 2021May 22, 2025

Clair what? Clairgustance and Clairalience

Most of us are familiar with the terms clairvoyance or clairaudience. These are commonly recognized spiritual, psychic, or intuitive senses. But, how familiar are you with clairgustance? Clairalience?

Our body relies on our five main senses in the 3-D to take in information and make sense of the environment around us. Our spirit senses operate much in the same manner. Often, your strongest day-to-day sense is mirrored in your psychic senses. For instance, an artist is visual, relying on their eyes to create. Their strongest spirit sense is often clairvoyance, or “clear seeing.” A musician uses their ears, and is likely clairaudient or uses their sense of “clear hearing” to perceive information that is from outside and unseen stimuli.

To learn more about clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience, or claircognizance, check out the link to those intuitive development topics!

Clairgustance and clairalience function in much the same way as their sister senses do. Because they have to do with our sense of smell and taste, they are often overlooked, in favor of the more bombastic senses like clairvoyance. However, these two senses can be absolutely huge for folks who have developed them, providing a rich source of intuitive and psychic information for those who use them.

Sister Senses

Clairalience and clairgustance tend to work in tandem with one another to provide information to the intuitive. Clairgustance roughly means “clear tasting.” A clairgustant will taste distinct flavors from seemingly nowhere. These tastes may be related to a deceased loved one’s favorite dishes, or for chefs, they could be clues and guidance about what spices or sauces to include in cooking, what produce to purchase at the grocery store, or even what dishes to prepare for upcoming events. Sometimes mediums will receive information on how someone passes by identifying very particular tastes intuitively.

Clairalience has to do with “clear smelling.” A person who is clairailent acquires intuitive information from their sense of smell. Someone gifted with clairalience likely has a highly-developed sense of smell.

Clairalients may rely on this in their daily occupation- or enjoy using it in hobbies. Creating perfumes or essential oil blends, scented soaps, or candles. They may also be into cooking, too! These intuitives receive information from deceased individuals and associated scents: the smell of an aunt’s perfume, grandpa’s tobacco smoke, granny’s house and her baking. They may also receive information on how to improve something around them, specific essential oils to use in a diffuser or in cleaning products, which shampoo to buy, or even which friend to check in with when they smell their perfume, soap, or cologne.

This sense is strongly tied with memory and emotion due to the way our brains process scent. Think about clairalience and how it works with our animal companions, how some dogs can use their sense of smell to scent out illness or disease in humans. This is something that strong clairalients can do themselves!

If you receive random smells or taste flavors unexpectedly, there is a good chance that is your clairgustance or clairalience coming through! Also, if you are someone who is a chef, a baker, someone who likes to cook, a sommelier, a perfume maker-these might be the occupations of someone who has either of these intuitive gifts.

For many people, clairgustance and clairalience provide a pleasant rounding out of intuitive abilities. A little extra something to provide clients with, some validation that their loved one is nearby. For others, these gifts are crystal clear, diamond dazzling, and a huge part of what they do each and every day.

Power Up

Photo by Guilherme Stecanella on Unsplash

How can you boost your clairalience or clairgustance?

Play guessing games! Try guessing ingredients in perfumes, or in prepared dishes. When I taught school, we’d use unmarked film canisters with cotton balls inside for a little science experiment. Each cotton ball would contain drops of an essential oil that the students would try to identify. It was a great way to encourage them to rely on their sense of smell by taking the visual component out of it. You could easily replicate this experiment with a little help from a friend. Let someone else do the cooking for the night! Guess what’s for dinner, and what spices were used.
Be careful with your senses…don’t use scented products yourself. Skip the laundry detergent and fabric softener with strong scents and opt for fragrance-free. This will remove one layer of extra scent that your nose has to contend with. Go light on the salt or sugar in your food as well. You don’t want to use too much of any one thing that will overpower your palate. (Hot sauce lovers, I’m looking at you!) You want balance with flavor and an ability to easily taste that balance. Over salting can overpower your sense of taste.
Visualization is always a beautiful practice for intuitive development. Get your hands on a magazine and flip through to a random page. (Digital works fine, too.) Look for an image that you can clearly get a scent from. Close your eyes and picture yourself in the space. What is going on around you? Is there a campfire? What does that smell like? Keep flipping and scent sampling. You can also have a friend write down ten different things for you to smell and repeat this exercise with their list. If they are your intuitive development partner, you can do the same for them! Try this exercise with food and flavor.
Speaking of intuitive development; you can work with a partner or small group by tuning into others’ energy and record what information comes through. Center yourself as you’d ordinarily do, and focus on one individual. See what impressions come through when you focus on your senses. Colors? Sounds? Smells? Tastes? Feelings? This is a very fun exercise to do with a few people, as you may receive some validation on your intuitive hits. You don’t need to be in the same room or even the same place. Give it a shot via technology. Your intuitive development pals don’t need to be living in the same city or same state for you to practice together!
Be mindful as you go through your day. The more you engage your whole sensory system when you are eating, or smelling, the more you build up your clairgustant and clairalient dictionary. Your guides will lean into that to help you make sense of messages that need to come through.

Are you clairalient? Clairgustant? How do these unique gifts manifest for you? These singular psychic senses can be absolutely fascinating and layer a richness to your intuitive work. Let us know in the comment box below if you identify as clairalient or clairgustant!

October 28, 2021October 28, 2021

How Do You Shine? Evergreen Pick-a-Card Reading

I share weekly pick-a-card readings on Instagram and in my Facebook group. I thought I’d extend some of those readings to this platform. This particular reading focuses on a unique quality that makes you shine! Keep reading to check out the results of this intuitive experiment.

This won’t be for everyone. If you feel a pull, scan the photo, close your eyes, take some deep breaths (exhale twice as long), and choose the card that lights you up. Photos and messages are below. This reading uses The Wild Unknown Archetype Deck by Kim Krans.

September 10, 2021September 10, 2021

What’s Your Spiritual Name?

A powerful recurring vision I’ve had with clients is about ancestry. This doesn’t always imply blood ties; more often the paths we walk, the ways we honor ourselves, and the seeds inside our hearts that want to bloom open and spill out their petals of purpose, acts of service, or creation.

This vision always shows lines of humans, one hand on the shoulder of the person in front of them. Up mountainsides, down valleys, stretching across vast deserts, and the deep oceans.

It is a claiming.

August 30, 2021May 22, 2025

How You Can Become More Clairvoyant

I was lying in bed with my dog one spring evening. We were alone in the Lake Superior cabin that I love. We’d spent a great day hiking to some local waterfalls and I was tuckered out and content.

My head hit the pillow and I closed my eyes. Immediately, I saw the entire room in my mind’s eye. My attention pulled toward the doorway to the hall, and a man entered the room. He slowly walked toward the bed. He looked very ordinary; short brown hair, lean, average height to slightly above. Mid to late 50’s. He possessed one very unique feature.

His glowing red eyes.

My dog sat up and growled low in his throat, fixated on our late night visitor.

I knew there was no possibility on earth that I was dreaming this.

My dog’s head traced him as he stepped closer to the bed, I saw his movements in my mind at the same time.

He stopped at the edge of the bed. I felt dread wrap its fingers around my heart.

He reached out to me…

I’m going to stop right there, because not all clairvoyant experiences are this heart-pounding!

Clairvoyance has been life altering for me- both the spooky experiences, and the ethereal.

If it weren’t for my clairvoyant abilities, I never would have seen what heaven looks like. I wouldn’t have been able to see an Archangel, or have developed the ability to spot fellow healers.

If it wasn’t for clairvoyance, I wouldn’t be as effective in my healing practice.

So, are you interested in boosting your clairvoyant skills?

In this series on clairvoyance, we’ve talked about what it looks like to see clairvoyantly, and I’ve shared 20 signs that you might be clairvoyant. In this post, let’s look at strategies you can use to boost your clairvoyance, today!

August 29, 2021May 22, 2025

Can you see me? 20 Signs That You are Clairvoyant

Clairvoyance is a psychic sense that means “clear seeing.” Suspect you may be clairvoyant? Here is a list of 20 signs that you may be developing your third eye.

Signs 1-5

You are a visual person. Not an auditory person, or a person who needs to tinker with things. You prefer visuals, pictures, photos, videos, any kind of illustration. These help you process directions, and to break things down in a way that clicks for your brain.
You often describe things using the language of sight: “I see what you mean.” A clairaudient may say, “I hear you.” A clairsentient may say, “I feel you.” Your expressive language revolves around the visual.
Visual details are your thing. You may not remember the sound of the orchestra, or how the orchestra’s music made the hair on your arms stand up, but you remember the details of the musicians’ clothing, their instruments, the details inside the theater. Your memory banks may contain an entire visual story you created while they were playing. Do you remember maps, what people were wearing today, the Macy’s department store window? You probably LOVE Pinterest!
You are a vivid dreamer. Dream recall is not a problem for you (this may be on the uptick if you are opening up). You remember specific details of who was in your dream, and what certain details of the setting and action looked like. You may see faces of people you do not know, and don’t think you’ve ever seen before. These could be deceased ancestors, guides, or other members of your Spirit Team!
You imagine plans from start to finish. You see an outcome for projects. People doing jobs, coming together to share in something. You are good at overseeing these plans because you have such an eye for detail. You may be a long-range planner or event planner.

August 28, 2021May 22, 2025

Clairvoyance: What is it like to see clairvoyant images?

Clairvoyance is likely the most well-known of all the psychic senses. It is the visual psychic sense, the sense associated with our human sense of vision. It is the realm of the third eye, and because of that is suited to slick visuals on the big screen, which is how many of us are familiar with the term clairvoyant. (Or perhaps the line, “I see dead people.”)

Who can forget M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense?

In real life, clairvoyance isn’t nearly as heart-pumping.

That doesn’t mean it isn’t exciting.

Clairvoyance roughly means “clear seeing.”

As with any psychic sense, energy flows the path of least resistance. If you are someone who is fairly visual in your waking world, you are likely stronger in your clairvoyance than some other psychic senses. And like any psychic skill, clairvoyance can be developed.

What is it like to see clairvoyantly?

**Photo by** **Héctor J. Rivas** on Unsplash

It is honestly a hair’s-breadth away from imagination. Images are mostly seen in your mind’s-eye (third eye). This looks like what you see when you are visualizing the setting and action in a novel you are reading.

Occasionally you see clairvoyantly with your own eyes; something that doesn’t happen as often for me. (Although, I do have a friend who sees earthbound individuals-ghosts-much like Haley Joel Osment’s character in The Sixth Sense. Her case is rather unique, and not many people see the earthbound in this way.)

When I started my awakening, I hadn’t had many clairvoyant experiences, and I was a little scared to. I thought it would look like something out of a horror movie.

I was wrong

August 24, 2021May 22, 2025

How to Become More Clairsentient

Double rainbow coming from dark clouds and touching Lake Superior.

Want to boost your psychic sense of clairsentience? Clairsentience is the psychic sense known as “clear feeling.” This is the third part of a series of posts on clairsentience. In part one, I introduced how energy follows the path of least resistance. For clairsentients, this includes sensing physiological reactions and/or emotions in response to an energy outside of ourselves. In part two, I shared 25 signs that you might be clairsentient, and not realize it! In this third post on clairsentience, I am going to share some tips and practices to help you develop the gift of your psychic feeling.

(more…)

August 21, 2021May 22, 2025

Are you Clairsentient? 25 Signs you can feel

Clairsentience is the psychic sense known as “clear feeling.” In the first post on this clair, I mentioned how energy follows the path of least resistance. For clairsentients, this includes sensing physiological reactions in the body as well as experiencing emotions in response to an outside and unseen stimulus. In Part 2, we are going to review 25 signs that you might be clairsentient.

Signs 1-5

You identify as sensitive.

How often have you heard, “you’re too sensitive?” Too many to count? This phrase is often shared by others as a way to highlight your uniqueness (and probably not in a kind way). Sometimes you feel like it’s all too overwhelming, and other times you embrace your empathic nature. Either way, you FEEL.

You feel all the things. People’s emotions, the drama that went down in the conference room before you walked in, the news, break-up ballads, commercials, causes, other folks’ eyes on you. You are a highly sensitive person (HSP) all the way around.

2. You are observant.

Whatever its origins, you are a watcher. You would have been the lookout who caught the first whiff of danger for our paleolithic ancestors. Cliff! Saber-tooth cat! You are observant of people’s behavior and notice tiny details in your environment that others overlook.

3. You may identify as an introvert.

You recharge your batteries during alone time. Being on your own helps bring you some clarity while other people’s stuff gets cleared out from your aura during quiet time. You may also need more time alone after energy clearing to rebalance and replenish your energy supply. Oh hello, there you are!

4. People spill the tea.

You have folks knocking on your door, wanting to share their latest family drama. You may find getting work done a challenge because you are constantly interrupted by colleagues coming to chat with you. Strangers may stop you on the bus to tell you about their lives. By holding space for others, you are gifting them a healing with your clairsentience, and your presence. You may wind up learning way more about people than you are comfortable with!

5. You have an open mind.

You try to hear all sides of a situation and not judge. It’s part of what makes you a great listener. Some folks may get upset because you don’t land on the side of the fence that they want you to. You do your best to truly understand others regardless.

August 14, 2021November 5, 2022

Hello!

I came out of the Spiritual Closet, again. My profile picture on my woo woo IG account is now my actual face and not some random close-up of a north woods birch tree. If people from my mid-sized city take a gander, they’ll recognize me, as much as they may recognize a camera-shy introvert (I like taking pictures, not being in them).

Cue the double take. “Isn’t that…?”

I was a public school teacher for 16 years.

Until this month.

I’m now a free agent, so here I am.

Yikes.

My former colleagues, families, and students who stumble across this page may recognize the camera-shy, introverted, and calm teacher. And they may not like this version of me. But, it’s time to step into alignment.

I’ve been moving down this road for a while now, dodging behind trees and scraggly bushes, staying hidden in the dark, occasionally stepping into a moonlit patch of grass when I encountered a similar wandering soul. Those conversations were often brief, until I started to find others who were like me.

My close friends and family knew I was “woo woo” the first time I came out, about ten years ago. It was a scary awakening (I was raised to respect science, not the unexplained new feelings exploding out of my body-hello synesthesia, or the visions of deceased people coming to me at night). I managed to learn to deal with some of these abilities and random experiences, and most of my folks were supportive, even if some didn’t agree. I figured out quickly who I was opening up to, and who I wasn’t.

So here I am. The anxiety is high again. People can actually see me, and I’ve spent so many years hiding.

I’m equal parts wired and thrilled. It’s taken a decade to get here, and the last several years I’ve felt like I have been pulling myself out of sticky thick quicksand. I may be thoroughly coated in mud, but I am putting my face out to the general public. Finally, owning The Weird. Embracing who I am and dropping the facade.

So here it is: Hello everyone! I am Andrea Graham, an Intuitive Healer and Psychic. I can sense emotions, feel energy, see and hear messages from spirit guides and angels, and I receive information in intuitive downloads. (Did I mention I love long walks in the woods, crystals, and everything Tarot?)

I hope to be connecting more with you all soon. Let’s talk Awakening for those who are just starting their journeys. Tarot spreads. What creates a good healer. And boundaries for the wayward night walkers who wake you out of a deep sleep. (Being a Kindergarten teacher really helped with boundary setting.)

While there may always be folks I still omit truths to, there will be a little less hiding behind paper thin birch skin on this new path. Glad to be with you, woo woo crew. See you in the woods.